


Gordian Knot

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Post "Chosen", Post Season 7, Post Series, Post Sunnydale, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place right after the very last episode (they just escaped). Very careful Giles/Buffy relationship development.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gordian Knot

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fic. Hope you enjoy it! I hope I managed to get rid of all mistakes (I don't have a beta). Also, I hope my English is alright, I'm not a native speaker but sure as hell trying my best. x

**Gordian Knot**

Unable to answer the question of what was going to happen next, but realizing that the horrors of her Sunnydale life up to date were all buried in a crater and that somehow, magically, she hadn’t ended up being the only survivor of their local apocalypse, Buffy could only smile as she looked down the rim.

She left the others who were babbling about the incredible events that would surely take all of them the rest of their lives to fully process, offering each other hugs and the comfort that came with it, tending to each other’s mental, but more obviously, physical wounds to stroll a few steps along the edge of the huge nothingness that had been Sunnydale, continuing to gap on the far side of the school bus, too.

Moving farther away from the others, she allowed herself to get lost in her own thoughts for a while. She couldn’t permit herself to draw any wise or metaphorically placent conclusion from what had happened; still, whilst she was unable to yet entirely grasp her inner joy about the fact that years and years of unrepeatable torture had finally and doubtlessly come to a definitive end, she granted herself the fulfilling of her need to mourn her friends in silence. She’d always remember Anya fondly, of that she was sure; it had never been clear to her exactly how far the former demon had crept into her heart, but she was able to pinpoint it now. In almost physical pain, she remembered Spike’s sacrifice. He had saved all of their lives; she remembered confessing to him her love, even if she hadn’t done so wholeheartedly. She had, indeed, begun to love him, love him as a human creature, as a mysterious yet horrifying being who had suddenly been granted a soul, a real soul, and turned into something she could now only name a genuine friend. Of Tara she couldn’t bear to think; there hadn’t been time to remember her fondly and with due intensity when she had gone, and now, Buffy couldn’t find enough strength within her to — as she thought — properly remember her warmhearted witch friend.

It was remarkable how nearly everything, every tragedy, every event of loss taken place above the Hellmouth seemed to have their destiny, to have influenced their own lives in irreversible and yet often quite positive ways. Ways on which she found herself reluctant to mentally elaborate now. She had all the time in the world to build up theories and philosophies about them. She had all the time in the world to, for once, put her life into an order that she could define. With the Hellmouth gone and her not being the only Slayer to watch over the world anymore, her life suddenly belonged to herself for the very first time. Looking back at her friends standing next to the bus and tending to all kinds of things that were so very real, so very urgent and so very comfortably practical, she let out a huge sigh of relief, wondering how they would all fit into their newly gifted lives, lives of “normal" people — or, at least, people who weren’t obliged to risk their lives and sanity for the world’s entire existence at least several times a month.

Turning her back on her friends again, she continued to slowly stroll alongside the plunging cracks towards where the sun — the sun which they had only just feared to never be able to see again — was, ignorant of all which had taken place, promisingly sinking behind the edge of her sight at a pace that, in the context of the recent events, seemed incredibly but comfortably slow. Shielding her eyes with her palm against what now turned into a deepest red, she spotted her Watcher silently gazing far into the hollow nothing, facing the depth of the crater only a few steps ahead of her. He didn’t seem to notice her approaching, so she carefully cleared her throat in order to not send him flying far down to where she was eternally grateful to have seen him escape from. The timid sound made him turn around and look at her; just as she had seen it billions of times before, he removed his glasses and quickly gazed through them from above before he started cleaning them. He managed to give her a quick, weak smile before he spoke.

\- “Buffy."

\- “No more Hellmouth for us, huh? No more of the undead in the near future."

Looking as confused as he ever did when being interrupted in his thoughts, Giles agreed with a quick nod of his brows.

\- “Oh, I-I most sincerely hope so." Putting his hands into his pockets, he cautiously shot a gaze towards where hell’s gates had just yet closed.

\- “That makes us … uh … I don’t know … free people, I guess? Free to pursue, um … different career branches?" She sent him a shy grin to which he replied with a barely noticeable, but undeniably amused twitch of the corners of his mouth.

\- “That’s what one would reckon, yes." He cleared his throat, readjusting his glasses. “Although I haven’t been informed what the Council is to decide in such a case — well, f-frankly such a case never having been speculated on — I dare to go as far as to say that I’m fairly certain we are to be relieved of our duties … for the time being, t-that is." Even though his hypothesis sent her flying into foggy, fluffy clouds of relief, she thought she’d noticed signs of hidden anguish in his face. She went up to him and softly took his arm.

\- “You okay, Giles?" He was sure he heard genuine concern and gave her a short nod as he spoke.

\- “Y-Yes, Buffy, I think so. W-Well, in the light of the current circumstances, that is", he corrected himself, gesturing at the frightfully deep gap.

\- “We’re all traumatized, Giles, we have all been through the same hell", Buffy agreed, “but if I’m not mistaken, Watcher, there’s more that’s bothering you right now."

Giles slowly pulled his arm out of her embrace to bend and sit down on the ground, his knees slightly pulled up to him. Buffy copied him instantly. They gave each other rather pensive looks. Finally, taking off his glasses again and slowly repeating the earlier procedure, Giles attempted to explain.

\- “There, you have just brushed the core of my concern, Buffy: g-given our situation", he motioned towards the crater, again, “I’m afraid that … w-well, that we may conclude that I am not to be your Watcher, nor you my Slayer anymore." She looked alarmed but didn’t move, sensing he wasn’t done explaining yet.

"If, in the light of … r-recent events, the Council decides that our services will be uncalled for … w-will not be urgently necessary in the foreseeable future, that is … then I fear we shall part … and pursue different directions, Buffy. Not that your company isn’t of the most pleasant kind, of course", he interrupted himself quickly, his gaze shifting between the horizon and his glasses which he had kept trying to clean while speaking. Realizing he was following this trail of thoughts silently, Buffy lifted her head a little to answer.

\- “But that doesn’t mean our bond, you know, our, um, supernatural connection, our Slayer-Watcher bond thingy is going to disappear, right?" She was still phrasing everything her usual, unmistakeably Buffy-like way, but he found himself surprised at how calm she was. It hit him suddenly how much she had grown up, how — well, yes, he wouldn’t know how else to put it — wise she had become during the past year. Her question made him release a small, wary smile.

\- “No, I really don’t think so, Buffy, no", he chuckled a little, “I am quite convinced that such a bond is nothing that can be dissolved so easily." She smiled back; to have Giles chuckle at something, she counted among the few things that had made fighting through all these cursed years in Sunnydale worthwhile. Then, she suddenly grew unusually serious.

\- “Sure wouldn’t want that to happen, especially after we, uh, after almost cutting it last time." Giles looked confused. “Well, at least tangling it up into a Gordic…Gorian…Gordian knot", she toned it down a little. He smirked, raising his brows a little as he smilingly put his glasses back on. - “Wouldn’t want that to happen either," he said.

Both looked into the distance, then Buffy instinctively looked back to the others to make sure everything was alright (just now, Xander and Dawn were trying to light a small fire), and felt a little guilty upon realizing both that she had let them out of her sight, and that they probably didn’t need to be watched over by the Slayer at all times anymore. She let out a small sigh of relief which Giles seemed to misinterpret entirely.

\- “Buffy, I … I’m sorry." Actually not realizing what he meant by that, she asked, - “For what?", resting one hand on his shoulder, upon which he looked up to briefly face her, then turning away again and examining the dusty soil between his legs.

\- “For leaving you when you needed me. F-for not being able to offer you a parent’s love and support when you needed it. For not giving you the comfort you n-needed when our…when your life was, er, coated in black, I suppose … For not being able to understand what you wanted me to do, and w-where to be. Buffy, I-I must admit that I’ve been torn down by my own feelings, and I was selfish enough not to keep them at a distance, and it-it clouded my judgement as a Watcher. No matter what happened, I shouldn’t have left you to face … well, a-all this", he motioned, “alone." He seemed painfully filled with regret. She took a deep breath and started to understand.

\- “It was my fault that we grew apart, Giles," she began, and he frowned; - “well, um, not entirely my fault of course, but I hurt you more deeply than I ever thought I would be capable of." She swallowed; he had wanted to object, but remained silent now, since what she said happened to be the truth.

\- “And what’s worse is that I can’t even say I didn’t do it on purpose. I never intended to hurt you this much, but Giles, I sure was lashing about. I … I’ve made so many mistakes and to be honest, you know, I’m surprised you sticked around." She bit her lip, pulling back her hand from his shoulder.

\- “You aren’t the only one who’s made mistakes, Buffy", he pointed out. - “But I should have b-been more aware of how … well, how hard it was for you to reconcile your life as the Slayer with your life as … Miss Summers. To, erm, balance your demon-crushing duties with your duties as a member of a family, as a friend, and also", he blushed for a moment, “as a l-lover, of course. I-I mean, I … not that I have all too much experience on being the latter, as you surely m-must have noticed", - she grinned a little - “but I know all too well how it feels to be unable to, er, connect one’s calling to one’s, er, emotional necessities." He rested his head on his arms, pulling his knees a bit closer as it had slowly begun to get a little chilly.

\- “Giles -"

\- “No, no, it’s true, Buffy", he interrupted her before she could object, “I haven’t fulfilled my duties as your Watcher the way I should have, the w-way you certainly must have expected me to." Buffy wasn’t sure how to reply.

\- “Well, even if I happened to do quite an alright job as a Slayer, I’m sure I haven’t, um, ‘fulfilled my duties’ as a person." He looked a little puzzled, still observing the horizon over the prop of his knees. “As a friend, I mean", she added. Giles wasn’t quick enough to protest, and she continued,

\- “You haven’t just been my Watcher, Giles. Well, um, you have been an excellent Watcher, at least when I let you. But you’ve been much more to me and I don’t see how I would have survived all this", she gave the crater a quick, familiar nod, “without your help. Well, without you in general." Giles stiffened a little, about to move and speak, but again, she wasn’t done yet. Buffy sat up a little and parted her hair at her neck to be able to play with the ends.

\- “Ever since watching that factory burn, Giles, I knew I would never be able to protect us from all the evil thingies jumping at us from the Hellmouth, let alone, um, literally survive all of them. And I mean all of them. And I don’t mean only them, because hey", she grinned, “we both know I have mad Slayer skills." He gave a muffled chuckle as she continued in all seriousness, - “I also mean survive all of this, um, emotionally. Yeah, okay, that sounds cheesy now, but seriously, Giles, you have no idea how often I have thought of just giving up and leaving everything behind. There is only so much I can take and honestly, if I hadn’t known you had my back, I don’t know what I’d have done."

For a split second, Giles double-checked her words for sarcasm, rewinding what she had said, but she seemed to be in deadly earnest. He felt a tiny cliff coasting down his shoulders. Buffy was holding her elbows, shielding herself a little from the chills the occasional breath of wind brought by, her white shirt unusually clean against the now-fallen dusk. She looked back at the others and saw they had actually managed to light a good fire. Giles took off his glasses again, spinning them between two fingers as his elbows were still rested upon his knees.

\- “Neither would I have known what to do without you, Buffy", he spoke softly. “You know better than I do about exactly how black a pitch I had fallen into after … after Jenny’s death." Buffy gave a slight nod, rubbing her forearms. Of course she knew. It had been the first time she had felt as if her Watcher needed to be watched, needed to be protected sometimes, too, and not just from infernal creatures. He stopped spinning his glasses around, put them into his jacket pocket and went on.

\- “But that isn’t the only time my, er, pitches have been of a similar colour." Buffy noticed he had been speaking more and more calmly since their conversation had started. - “I certainly don’t need to go into detail, do I … but your rejection after you, er, came back did send me to a very similar place", he continued. Buffy swallowed and forced herself to remember her own cruelty, and Giles’ slow descent to unhealthy company and self-destructive behaviour. She shuddered and blamed it on a passing breeze.

\- “I never apologized, Giles."

\- “Don’t. I was merely trying to explain-" He sighed. “I did need you, Buffy, and if my lousy attempts at self-evaluation have ever been as much as faintly correct, I … I still do." Giles put his glasses back on and looked distinctly unhappy. - “A-And, well, I am afraid that with both of us pursueing different paths from now on, -" He was really examining the soil very closely, all of a sudden, and Buffy knew he had deliberately stopped himself, since even as a Watcher, he wouldn’t have been able to observe it too well in the quickly-darkening dusk. She decided it meant that she must go on speaking.

\- “I really am sorry, though. I mean I never have given you enough credit for what you have done at all. And I never should have hurt you this way. Believe me, I realized that already a while ago, but I guess not even our Slayer-Watcher bond is able to make us actually talk about stuff, huh." She ran her fingers through her hair. - “You have to believe me. Giles, it broke my heart to see you retreat into loneliness, and well -", she wasn’t sure how to put it, and he flinched a little as she named it, “the beverages that go with it. You were suddenly so far away, farther than I could reach, and it was all my fault. But I just push everyone away, I guess. Turns out I have a scary effect even on humans, right?" She gave a short, nervous laugh.

Giles felt knots and knots slowly, but surely untangling, unwinding inside him at what she said. He couldn’t be certain whether she was trying to say the same things which had urged him to speak earlier or not, but in either case, her words made him feel incredibly happy. He took his glasses off again and started cleaning them, although it was too dark to see if there was dust on them.

\- “Buffy, you certainly haven’t scared me away. You know that-that had I only known that you still wanted me around, I would never have left. Could I only have been certain of that fact that you, well, s-still needed me, I would never have retreated so far away." He sighed. “Apparently, we are both fairly talented at creating misunderstandings, am I right?" They both smiled a little; Buffy nodded frantically, making him grin. Again, she ran her fingers through her hair, searching for more elaborate words, words to help her explain, but found herself abandoned by them.

\- “Giles, I-" She sat up a little more and decided she had to look straight at him, which she had hardly done throughout their conversation. At first out of politeness, but then realizing it was what he had wanted to do ever since they had begun talking, he felt his eyes pulled to her as well in response. He carefully raised a brow, giving her an eagerly expectant look, unable to hide that for him, much seemed to depend on what she would say next. Their eyes locked; Buffy spoke.  
\- “I _still_ need you."

With that, and the sudden, slowly rising, but unmistakable smiles that invaded both their faces, Buffy too felt a Gordian knot resolve into a plain, long, uncomplicated string within her. A string that she knew connected her to the man next to her; only she hadn’t been sure if it was just the bond, or something else. Now, she felt quite sure that it was more, at least a friendship she would never put at the risk of losing; being at the receiving end of a beautifully genuine smile from Giles, though, she wished with all her heart that her suspicions of this draw were more than a Slayer-Watcher connection resolved into a valuable friendship. Those thoughts apparently clouded her face for just a moment, because Giles felt the need to put his hand onto hers, both resting on her right knee now. He decided that for once, he had to be straightforward in articulating his feelings. His voice trembled a little when he said,

\- “I’m glad you do."

Having taken the risk, he instantly regretted telling her; but then, her smile returned, just as beautiful as it had been before, beaming at him rays of warmth that he felt pierce his heart. She interlocked her fingers with his and Giles felt himself longing to read more into this simple gesture than he had ever allowed himself to hope for. He didn’t dare to fully let down his guard, and so, when Buffy parted her fingers from his, he thought for a moment that all was lost — only to realize that, when he turned his head again to look at where the crater had only just been visible before it got dark, Buffy had drawn her hand away for the sole purpose of hugging him.

Feeling her arms around him, he stiffened for a moment, not being able to believe it. She squeezed his shoulders very gently and they gave in, leaning a little into her hug. Feeling as if her invisible string were pulling her even closer to him, Buffy found herself unable to resist and shyly dared to speak her mind, having buried the thought for far too long. Carefully leaning her head onto his shoulder, she said,

\- “Giles, I love you."

He felt a wave of burning warmth getting a hold of him, but instantly discarded the small hope her confession had raised in him as a stupid, naive thought. Thus, he replied plainly, but nevertheless wholeheartedly,

\- “I love you too, Buffy." He smiled, but she sensed that her message hadn’t been received as she had intended it. Hoping that the slight trembling her words had evoked in him meant what she wished it to mean, she said,

\- “You got me wrong, Giles." He stiffened again and their hug began to dissolve as both of them parted a little to see each other’s expressions. Buffy read fear in his eyes; and God, he couldn’t be sure if he read in hers what he had prayed for to be there for what must be years now. Her voice sounded shaky.

\- “I really love you", she half-whispered, instantly looking away and trying to make out her shoes in the only slightly moon-lit dark. The fire that had been burning inside him devoured Giles’ heart. It couldn’t be, but if, oh if only that were true! What to think, what to do … stifling the doubts that knocked on his heart’s door and asking to come in to sting it, slay it, he moved before he could allow his thoughts to change his mind.

Tilting her head gently towards him with one hand, his lips brushed hers in the softest kiss she had ever felt. Buffy saw tears in his eyes and knew that he would find hers to have been grasped by the same condition. He felt one run down his cheek before he could stop it. She took his face into her hands, carefully brushing his tears away with her thumb. His eyes seemed to endlessly beg her to reassure him that what happened was real, asking the same question again and again, making her smile.

\- “Yes," she smiled radiantly, not being able to remember a time when she had been so happy that it ached, receiving a smile equally unsurpassable. She pulled him to her and they engaged in a kiss that made all the years of waiting, all the suffering and pain, all the nagging doubts worthwhile.

Their strings intertwined and joined each other in a tight knot.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Polite comments are always welcome ;)  
> Also, if you see any grave mistakes, please point them out! Thank you! :)


End file.
